1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to juice dispensing and in a preferred embodiment to dispensing orange juice from 5+1 concentrate at a temperature as low as about -10.degree. F.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Postmix orange juice dispensing systems are known. Orange juice concentrate is distributed frozen. Restaurants remove concentrate from the freezer and thaw the concentrate in a cooler prior to dispensing. The restaurant has to estimate its juice requirements at least two days in advance and place sufficient concentrate in its cooler. If the restaurant's estimates are incorrect or if someone forgets, the restaurant will run out of thawed concentrate. Also, there is often a limited amount of cooler space available for thawing orange juice concentrate. When a restaurant runs out of thawed concentrate, measures are sometimes taken to quickly thaw frozen concentrate and such measures often are inefficient and ineffective and also sometimes affect the taste of the resulting product. Orange juice concentrate has typically been 3+1 concentrate. The present invention is useful preferably with 5+1 concentrate, although it can be used with any desired ratio up to about 7.5+1. The reduced amount of water in 5+1 concentrate prevents a phase change or freezing, at typical freezer temperatures of -10.degree. F. to 0.degree. F. The 5+1 concentrate at freezer temperatures does not readily flow by gravity. A container of 0.degree. F. product can be inverted and no product will flow out. Also, the product is so thick that a pump's suction cannot pull product from the container. However, the product is still pliable.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a postmix juice dispensing system for use with 5+1 concentrate at freezer temperatures.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a postmix juice dispensing system for use with 5+1 concentrate at freezer temperatures in which the concentrate is contained in a flexible bag which is then placed in a pressurizable vessel which is pressurized to about 40 psig to force concentrate out of the bag.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a postmix juice dispensing system for dispensing 5+1 concentrate at freezer temperatures including elevating the concentrate temperature to about 32.degree. F. to 40.degree. F., forcing the thawed concentrate to a metering device, and then feeding the thawed and metered concentrate to a mixing chamber of a dispensing valve.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a postmix juice dispensing system in which 5+1 concentrate at freezer temperatures is placed in a flexible bag in a pressurizable vessel and forced by pressure out of the flexible bag, fed through a heat exchanger, then fed through a metering device, and finally fed to a mixing chamber of a dispensing valve.
It is another object of this invention to provide a juice dispensing system for any juice or syrup which has been cooled but which has not experienced a phase change from liquid to solid.
It is another object of this invention to provide daily flushing of the mixers and mixing line without diluting the concentrate in the concentrate reservoir.
It is a further object of this invention to control the water flow with linear solenoid modulation.
It is a still further object of this invention to provide a dripless gerotor concentrate pump.
It is a further object of this invention to provide-under-the counter components including a canister tank, a refrigeration unit, and a water bath.